Work Text:
It was my fault.
Maybe we were tired because we had had too many assignments without a break. Maybe we were sloppy because our assignments were too easy lately. Except it wasn’t “we”; the fault is all mine. Illya’s only mistake was trusting my judgement.
One of our smaller sub-branches had reported suspicious activity, possibly THRUSH, but weren’t making any headway finding their location. Illya and I located it the day we arrived. The defenses looked too sloppy to be THRUSH; that should have warned me that we needed more preparation than usual because we were dealing with something unfamiliar. Instead, after a couple hours of covert observation, I decided we were ready to go in and take them out.
It was my stupid pride. I let the local branch head get under my skin with his sarcastic remarks about “Waverley’s pet glamor boys”. I wanted to show him just how good we were, so I was too cocky, too hasty.
Everything went according to plan until we reached the lab itself. Then my brilliant strategy fell apart. The scientist wasn’t going to be taken alive. The mercy bullets take a few seconds to work, so she had time to kill herself. Even if she needed psychiatric treatment, it was still a waste of a beautiful, brilliant woman’s life
Even worse, I made a rookie mistake. I knew Illya had to focus on the explosives and I was supposed to watch our backs. Instead, I turned around to ask Illya if he was almost finished. He would have told me when he was finished. I didn’t even need to ask and I certainly didn’t need to look at him in the circumstances.
When the bullet nicked my arm, I returned fire by reflex.
We weren’t expecting a child to be there because I’d skimped on the background research. I thought that we were lucky that we’d had the mercy bullets loaded because we’d have killed him using regular 9mm ammunition.
Then he had a seizure and stopped breathing, no pulse, nothing. We tried to save him. For the longest half hour in my life, we tried desperately to save him. We failed.
I’m told the little boy’s name was Michael and he had just turned six two weeks ago. I hope he had a happy birthday, because I’ve stolen all his future birthdays.
Illya has had his “Ice Prince” persona on since the incident. He just put his half of our report on my desk while I’ve been sitting here being maudlin. I can feel the anger and misery rolling off him, but he won’t let his emotions interfere with his duty. Unlike me.
I can’t deal with the paperwork. I need to get out of this place. I don’t want to kill anymore today. I don’t even want to be an UNCLE agent right now.
Maybe Monday, I’ll come back and be an agent again. Maybe I won’t.